First of all, Shakspere was a good thing to De Vere. Anthony Munday
and John Lyly had covered for him since his return from Europe as
a playwright, and after Lyly turned out a spy for William Cecil Lord
Burghley in 1592, he needed a new front. Lyly never produced another
play after he left De Vere.

Although
patronage was acceptable, being known to do the work of the rabble
wasn't. It was more than declasse, it
was shaming and
dangerous. Censorship reigned as a fact of life. De Vere all but
flouted the taboo. His mansion Fisher's Folly became a small university
for playwrights. Cecil described the associates there as "lewd
persons". De Vere's political views, easily inferred from baleful
plays about the aristocracy, also provoked Cecil's reactionary fears.

Shakspere fit the personality type necessary as a
front man. He was illiterate and wouldn't compete, a showman canny
to the roles
a front assumed–the airs, the brags, the magnanimous pose. He proved
basically honest when it came to agreements and contracts. De Vere
expressed this opinion when Shakespere capriciously went beyond his
function and London writers castigated him: "He is honest in
his business dealings." The criticisms stopped. If he made trouble,
De Vere could handle him. 'As You Like It' illustrates that. Fortuitously
his name and De Vere's nickname were allonyms.

De Vere needed a 'beard' and money to continue public
theater. The latter dilemma got him the nickname "Pierce (for spear) Penniless".
Withal, the guild knew and admired him. It was not satire to call
him "Gentle Master William". He was genteel. He did lower
himself to gentleman, i.e., Master, though the most noble of the
aristocracy. From being in William Cecil's household, he became his
foster-father's eponymous "William", a paternalism of the
class. That he had been called spear shaker (hasti vibrans) since
childhood, and that this association became further strengthened
by his tourney exploits and Gabriel Harvey's rhetoric, ("Thine
eyes flash fire. Thy countenance shakes spears"), cumulatively
created the perfect match with Shakspere. The hyphen in his pseudonym
Shake-speare gave away its contrived nature. Insiders would know
the double-game. The public did not.

De
Vere played on his alter-names in several ways. His phrase, "Will
he nill he?" had the subtext "Is he determined to go ahead
or will he negate himself?", a formulation first expressed in
his introduction to Bedingfield's translation of 'Cardanus Comforte'.
He had said Bedingfield would murder philosophy, an integral part
of human substance, if he didn't share his work. Obviously De Vere
was determined not to 'murder' his own work, although how he would
finally reach acceptable recognition remained unclear. The title
of a tale he wrote in the 1590's, "Willobie and Avisa" asserts
imperatively he would "be"–Will, O Be!–i.e.,
declare himself writer of his own plays, Avisa ('permission') standing
nearby
to sanction just that. The title isn't far away from his existential
line, "To be or not to be, that is the question." Actively
be or you aren't. Nashe referred to De Vere with the undercover sobriquet "Monox",
alluding to the French 'my' and 'ox', short for Oxford. The picaresque "Pasquill
Cavaliero" appears to be another alias, this time referencing
his cavalier manner of life and the prospect that, given all the
trouble with the Vavasour clan, he might give up and emigrate to
Spain. The first name plays on the French negative, pas, to say, "No
quill Cavaliero". In other words, HE's not the writer...

SECTION II

His
plays were big business around London. In 1586 Elizabeth had granted
him £1000 a year so that 'Princes may maintain their creations',
in modern language keep the play work going, boost the national consciousness,
and avoid financial ruin. By 1597, when Shakspere importunately stepped
too far into his master's shoes, he became a laughingstock and had
to be curbed. The 3rd Earl of Southampton, Henry Wriothesley, De
Vere's son, paid Shakspere £1000 to cease his pretensions and just
market his name for commercial use. This was the first time De Vere
got his plays into print under the nom de plume Shake-speare. Shakspere
used the money to buy a fine house back home and set himself up,
including a crest.

At that moment, in 1598, Cecil died and his son Robert became Chief
Minister for Elizabeth. 'Robin' had grown up with, though years younger
than, De Vere. He did not tolerate De Vere's Bohemian freedom, not
because of religious or aristocrat's ethics but because he wanted
no trouble of any kind and De Vere's later plays threatened that.
'Julius Caesar', 'Antony and Cleopatra', 'Richard II'–were not light
drama. They spoke of overthrow, intrigue, and cynical realpolitik.
De Vere was a strict monarchist. Nevertheless his plays examined
politics realistically, revealing the conflicts within his class,
a consummation Cecil devoutly did not wish.

Cecil simply kept the names De Vere or Oxford as far as possible
from the plays, regardless that Englishmen in the thousands and ten
thousands saw them at nightfall, cued by Protestant vesper bells.
His minions made the author's own name-deception the means to subvert
him. De Vere's and 'Shake-speare's names started appearing in publications
simultaneously as two different people. The effect was to separate
the aristocrat, and his class, from the dangerous 'Shake-speare',
even though 'they' were one man employing a pseudonym and a stooge.

It became inevitable De Vere's identity, no matter he was the literary
giant of the age, would be buried for political purposes, to dissociate
his personage from the controversial ideas, as well as for aristocratic
solidarity, to bar other nobles from crossing class lines. Both strategies
succeeded and neutralized the playwright. Neither at the time nor
in future decades did the public detect the truth, that a rebel prince
wrote Shake-speare. Their attitude remained politically docile.

Consequently while the Essex Rebellion happened in 1601 with the
Earls of Essex and Southampton in the lead, it didn't spread. Play-goers
may have been fascinated with the world of their masters. That didn't
mean they would overthrow them. Devereaux and Wriothesley seemed
to think the crowd would march from the denouement of 'Richard II'
at the theater to storm the Queen's gate. The actor John Wilkes Booth
carried the theatrical-versus-prudential delusion one step further.
The Essex principals soon surrendered; several were shot, more imprisoned
and executed; Robert Devereaux lost his head and Wriothesley his
freedom. Could he have become Henry IX simply by royal blood? Henry
Fitzroy, Henry VIII's illegitimate son, wasn't his father's uncontested
heir. Royal blood, like a noble's rightful claim to his art, did
not move countervailing power.

De Vere played no part in the attempted coup. Old, sick, lame, the
wars were over for him. The Essex Rebellion remains in memory a political
abortion, 300 marchers in an unruly band, the Elizabethan equivalent
of the Russian Revolution of 1825 and precursor to the Revolution
of 1688.

Lady Pembroke, De Vere' in-law, via his daughter Susan, had her
own dramatist front man, John Webster the carriage-maker's son. She
suffered no inconvenience with the authorities. De Vere did and proved
vulnerable to the State. Their taking his son hostage broke his heart.
The Sonnets tell that story. He agreed to political quiescence. The
status quo demanded his never emerging as author of the plays. That
possibility got snuffed in the ensuing political repression, extending
past the lifetimes of any involved with De Vere. Unrecorded or couched
in code, any connections between the man and his artistic history
dimmed year by year. The Cecils kept only the letters favorable to
them. Robert Cecil took care to buy up De Vere's play companies and
incorporate them into the court theater. The players recognized the
best course, silence about De Vere.

Cecil's
final move was to suppress 'The Sonnets' after Wriothesley had
gotten the book into print in 1609. Again,
knowledgeable chatter
among the elite or intelligentsia did not equal insurrection. The
name-deception once advantageous to De Vere became de facto political
doctrine in Jacobean England. Only by encryption could the true author
be communicated: hidden in the dedication are the words, "These
Sonnets All By Ever The Forth", i.e., De Vere and "deVierde" in Dutch being near homonyms.

Above
is a reproduction of the Sonnets' dedication page in the
Yale Shakespeare 1923 edition. In the two rough triangles
of type, whose superficial meaning has puzzled readers for
400 years, is embedded the authorship of the poems—hidden
in plain sight. The code decrypted: THESE SONNETS ALL
BY EVER [VERE] THE FORTH. ("deVierde" meaning fourth in Dutch). An
alternative reading is THESE SONNETS ALL BY EVER POET THE
FORTH. The alternative reading is based on the sequencing
of the code: a 6-2-2 or in the second triangle 6-2-2-2 periodicity.
It has been suggested that the significant word periodicity
corresponds to the 6-2-4 [4=2+2] cipher total of the Edward
De Vere name. The redundancy of clues is typical of
the other encryption, i.e., the Shakespeare Monument, and
is characteristic of secret coding practiced during the 16-17th
centuries.

Mr.
D.L. Roper of Great Britain has gone further into decoding the
Sonnets Dedication and the Stratford Monument
than any other scholar to date. This is an area of the authorship
question not subject to academic rhetoric and rank-pulling. It is
factual. If anyone can demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that these
oddly worded artifacts can be tied in motive and form to Edward De
Vere, the issue of 'Shakespeare's' identity concludes right there.
Roper did that, relying upon the decryption suggestions of Dr. John
Rollett. See the article SHAKE~SPEARES
SONNETS, Thomas
Thorpe's Enigmatic Epigraph Explained, linked
here by Roper's permission.

Had
the political atmosphere grown more expansive, De Vere might have
gotten due recognition politically and culturally. It was not to
be that the consummate artist of his time cracked through its aristocratic
Calvinist shell. Therefore the front, Shakspere, enjoyed not a decade
but centuries of counterfeit fame.

SECTION
III

The
power of the new king changed little. Upon ascending to power,
James I honored De Vere ("The Great Oxford")
by releasing his son. He knew De Vere was no more a political threat
than Plato
had been. And De Vere, a closeted Catholic, had argued to spare James's
mother, Mary Stuart, in 1586. James I also favored De Vere's youngest
daughter Susan, a vivacious talented actress at court. After De Vere
died, a year later in 1605, James ordered seven 'Shakespeare' plays
performed for royalty. No other English writer had been honored
to that degree
and no noble. The Essex Rebellion remained in James' memory. The
night of De Vere's death, St. John's Day 1604, James I clapped Wriothesley
in the Tower, probably to warn him there must be no mischief now.
The never Henry IX walked out next morning.
For the family Edward De Vere's plea to 'report me and my cause aright'
called for discreet action. Without fanfare Susan De Vere Herbert
hired Ben Jonson to put the plays in proper shape for publication
twenty years after De Vere had died. Testimonials by actors supported
the reputation of Shakspere as though he had been the author and
they loyal kinsmen at the creation. An inaccurate etching of the
bogus author decorated the frontispiece. But Jonson always referred
to his friend Shakespeare, not the front man, Shakspere. He also
referred to "One that desired me not to name him."

To
further establish the fiction and thereby ensure the publication
of the Folios in 1623, the De Vere clan propped
up now deceased Gulielmus
Shakspere's status. Jonson's recognizable verse appears on his Stratford
Monument. The tribute encrypts in its cross-word puzzle graphic structure
a vertical message: De Vere "is" the author, just as he "is" Shakespeare.

As I stated above, this subject receives thorough explanation, and
Edward De Vere irrefutable vindication as the author of the Shakespeare
Canon, through Sixteenth Century decoding/decryption. Mr. D.L. Roper
adopted the current coding system of the era, the Cardano Grille, and
simply applied it to De Vere's backers' machinations on the unrecognized
author's behalf. The solution to the historical question is so elegant,
Roper properly deserves acclaim. Time will tell if justice be done
to De Vere's memory and to those whose honest labor honors it. But
at the least, Ben Jonson proved himself the loyal friend of his master,
because he managed to fool the public and the authorities with the
Stratford Monument wording. He struck the hidden nomenclature
which identified for future time the nobleman who wrote Shakespeare.
This article by Roper, ELS
(Equidistant Letter Sequence) - The Cardano Grille is
linked here by his permission.

I
wish to comment about a section of the Stratford Monument Mr. Roper
did not discuss. The Latin dedication placed above
Jonson's English dedication on the plaque is as important as the
odd phrase which reads 'Quick Nature Dide' in the English dedication.
[Mr. Roper has since amplified his discussion of the Latin phrase.
See the above website link.] Let us first discuss the 'Quick Nature
Dide' wording. In English and
so
placed,
the
phrase
is all
but
meaningless.
Why
was
it there
at all? To further identify De Vere on a monument to 'Shakspeare'.

The
phrase owes its secret value to the original Latin (Summa Velocium
Rerum), from which Jonson takes the first syllable of each Latin
word to make 'Sum
VeRe' [I-am Vere] out of the complete phrase. He redundantly
embeds
his secret about De Vere as the true Shakespeare, in case he hadn't
already put across the point or someone claimed co-incidence in the
Cardano Grille. He both conceals and furthers his purpose with the
English translation of the Latin. For only a fluent Latin speaker
would see that the English phrase jogs one's memory of the original
Latin. 'Quick Nature Dide' via the Latin equivalent leads to De Vere's
constructed name: 'Sum VeRe'='I-am VeRe'. All this is decodified
in Roper's tract.

But
the Latin sentence preceding the English dedication on the plaque
is explicit, unambiguous, elevated praise of a noble
soul. Here Jonson
does not prevaricate. The saying is "Judicio pylium, genio Socratem,
arte Maronem. Terra tegit, populus maret, Olympus habet". This
amounts to: "In judgment a Nestor, in genius a Socrates, in
art a Virgil [whom] the earth
buries, the people revere, the gods regard". For those who knew
De Vere,
it was appropriate language. For those unaware of the monument subterfuge,
it was Latin that must make sense, i.e., was taken on faith. For
those who
both knew Shakspere, the claimed subject, to their knowledge a grain
merchant and litigious bully, AND Latin, it must have been curious
testimony in the extreme.

A touching irony of these literary and cryptographic
revelations is that the maker of the "Cardano Grille",
Jerome Cardanus, was the very same Cardanus who wrote 'Cardanus
Comforte'. From our discussion in the 'Hamlet' chapter, his book
influenced
the young and aging De Vere profoundly, prefiguring Hamlet's
soliloquy, the consummation of De Vere's philosophy. Thus, Cardanus
comforted
De Vere in life; his cryptography protected the De Vere name,
and only too well, in death; and its Sphinx's riddle revealed
is De Vere's
deliverance 400 years after death.

The
subterfuge comprised of literary Latin and cryptographed English
on a
monument in rural Warwickshire succeeded. The Folios were published
without incident. The truth for the ages survived, though concealed
in code and obscured by myth. That mythology was never local however.

No legends of the Bard abounded in Stratford after
Shakspere died, nothing akin to the tales following Samuel Clemens
in Hannibal, Missouri
decades after he left. Rather, the Warwickshire country folk spoke
of "The Swan of Avon" who lived upriver at Bilton and "The
Shakespeare Room" where 'As You Like It' was written. Jonson
referred to 'the Sweet Swan of Avon'. It occurs to me the swan is
graceful, serene in his element, but awkward and helpless on land,
a good metaphor of the poet's life.

SECTION IV

Politically,
regionally, intellectually, the official truth triumphed: a hapless
unknown yeoman walked off his dusty street into the fortifications
of unassailable 'genius'. De Vere's descendants could not fight that
momentum. They needed to survive socially and financially as the
following centuries extolled Romantic individuality, heroic genius,
Hegelian glory. They kept mum publically but nevertheless maintained
remnants of the Oxford prodigal son. In the October 1991 Atlantic
Monthly is recorded Sotheby's 1948 sale from De Vere's great-granddaughter's
estate: Holinshed's 1587 'Chronicles'; 'The Noble Arte of Venerie
or Hunting' (1575);
Castiglione's 'Il Cortegiano' (1563), an Italian edition which De
Vere sponsored to be translated into Latin; Hakluyt's 'Voyages';
and a copy–signed in the hand of Henry Wriothesley–of
the Amyot 'Lives' of Plutarch. These were precisely the books, published
in
his–their–era, Edward De Vere would have had in his library.
Somehow the family kept them together for 350 years.

St. Alban's portrait
showing De Vere's
widow's peak

Droushaut's sketch after
De Vere
had died, a completely fictitious
portrait, created for the
First Folio
by
De Vere's family.

The Ashbourne portrait
of De Vere, but with his
hairline painted over in the
1700s to resemble the
Droushaut portrait.

The De Vere family Boar's
Head ring is concealed,
and
the De Vere-Trentham crest
is gilded over with the same
gold paint.

They
kept his portraits for a time, including one–the Ashbourne–that
was later altered to 'Shakespeare' in the late 1700's, two hundred
years after the sitting. It was the right image, the right moniker,
but no longer the right identity. Perhaps ancestral respect lived
on in protecting the Oxford background. But provenance hoaxes were
bound to follow in the wake of officially falsified doctrine. That
required any De Vere portrait to vaguely resemble the Droeshaut etching
on the 1623 Folio, a cartoon by a youth who had never seen either
man. There must have some vestigial memory of who the real author
was, else his portrait wouldn't have been a candidate to obtain and
change. The Boar's-head insignia got painted over, the combined De
Vere-Trentham crests misrepresented, widow's-peaks disappeared in
favor of receding hairlines, and thick eyebrows thinned. Distant
facts did not matter.

In the 1790's John Adams visited Stratford On Avon
doubting it could have produced Shakespeare. When P.T. Barnum went
there in 1847 he
wasn't interested in certainty, only amusement potential. He sought
the fanciest house in town to market as Shakespeare's. The townspeople
objected and defiantly made the second biggest "his" birthplace,
in order to keep profits local. Since then, a noted few have questioned
the myth: Emerson, Whitman, Freud, Galsworthy, James, Chaplin, Welles,
Gielgud, Jacobi, and those, mainly American, scholars working at
their own expense to reach a credible answer. Like other unstable
belief systems, the Shakespeare establishment forbade apostasy. Academia
obeyed that policy. I like to think that the authorship truth which
the unheralded scholars sought and found, and which their object
had prayed would emerge, approaches wider awareness now. The deception
wakes to find itself struggling in competition with irrefutable analytical
and documentary facts.

Abraham smashed false idols in his father's workshop. But clay pots
become brittle on their own and break after a time.